“My son is my son, ’till he gets him a wife;
My daughter’s my daughter, the whole of her life.”
The pious excellent Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England, convinced
of the unlawfulness of the King’s marriage, resigned the Great Seal,
and resolved to pass the remainder of his life amidst the charities of
home and the consolations of religion.--Erasmus, speaking of his friend
says, “there is not any man living so affectionate to his children; you
would say there was in that place Plato’s academy,--I should rather
call his house a school or university of Christian religion, for their
special care is piety and virtue.” Upon his refusal to take the oath of
supremacy, he was tried for high treason and condemned to be hanged,
drawn, and quartered, and his head to be stuck on a pole on London
bridge. He was executed July 5th, 1535. His body was begged by his
daughter Margaret, and deposited in the church of Chelsea; where a
monument, with an inscription written by himself had been erected some
time before. She found means also to procure his head, after it had
remained upon London bridge fourteen days: this she carefully preserved
in a leaden chest, till she conveyed it to Canterbury, and placed it
under a chapel adjoining to St. Dunstan’s church in that city; where,
after having survived her father sixteen years, she according to her
desire was buried in the same vault with her father’s head in her arms.